Speakers

Founder of GROUND Wellbeing

Peigín, founder of GROUND, brings 27 years of spa industry experience in crafting award-winning wellness experiences, emphasing inner well-being. Steering away from traditional spa menus, she focuses on addressing anxiety, insomnia and burnout, to name a few. Her mission is to address our innerworld, emphasizing how we feel and striving to achieve longevity through purposeful self-care and education.

In 2020, GROUND was founded with the aim of making sincere wellbeing

accessible to all. Within just two years, GROUND has gained recognition from

leading wellness properties worldwide, including The Rosewood in Hong Kong, St. Barth & Madrid, The Four Seasons in Boston, Whistler, and Toronto, and The Waldorf Astoria in Berlin, Beverly Hills, and Edinburgh. Peigín has expanded the brand to focus on women’s health along with a commitment to cancer care with The Barróg Collection.

Peigín resides in Cork with her husband Shane and their two daughters, Anna

Louise and Bella. She spends her time growing and developing her brand and

speaks passionately at events on sustainable wellbeing for partnered companies

such as Weir & Sons, AIB, BMW, Brown Thomas, and LuluLemon, among others.

Ronan advises industry leaders on how to create sustainable, high performance teams and organisations.

His clients include Deloitte, EY, KPMG, Siemens Energy, Kellogg's, L’Oreal, Sky, IHG, Sage, the UK Treasury and Oxford University. Ronan reveals the secrets to being a high performer with a low risk of burnout, an ideal speaker if your focus is on driving productivity and wellbeing.

In his hugely entertaining keynotes, audiences are introduced to new ways of managing pseudo productive and overly stressful knowledge work environments, with practical tools to shift to a model of sustainable high performance. He has gained industry recognition: A LinkedIn Top Voice on Public Speaking, and voted the top 5 Best Story Tellers at the 2023 Speaker Awards. Industry leaders work with him because he has a true gift for inspiring audiences. Ronan’s jaw dropping story is a cautionary tale about the pressures of senior leadership and the lasting consequences when we get it wrong.

A former futurist to the British Foreign Office, Ronan shares how he went from the corridors of power to being diagnosed with a lifetime chronic pain condition. What truly sets Ronan apart is his ability to inspire through his own story.. he navigated the corridors of power before being diagnosed with a lifetime chronic pain condition. It's rare for any speaker to reveal the vulnerability of being in an ongoing adversity, but it's precisely this depth and wisdom we need to understand true resilience.

Ken Hughes, known as The King of Customer Experience, is now acknowledged as being one of the world’s leading authorities on modern consumer culture.

He is internationally renowned for helping the biggest brands in the world to understand the challenges of better customer connections, modern marketing and branding.

With over 20 years’ experience as CEO of a consumer insight agency, he blends his understanding of consumer & cyber psychology, digital anthropology, behavioural economics and retail futurology to explore the needs of the new consumer and predict the changes to come.

Winnie is the Founder & CEO of Carra, an award-winning AI-driven hair care personalisation and multicultural consumer intelligence platform, disrupting the status quo and challenging the global hair care industry to be more inclusive.

Carra is powered by its proprietary and award-winning Textured Hair EngineTM. With over 15 million data points, Carra Labs partners with hair care brands, cosmetic formulators and marketers, providing the richest and most targeted insights to power inclusive innovation. Its recent Texture Gap report was lauded by Harper's Bazaar as the report to change the hair care industry as we know it.

Winnie has 12 years experience of building innovative consumer-tech platforms for world-renowned companies like Net-a-Porter, ASOS, LVMH and EY. After seeing first hand how the textured hair customer wasn’t being served, she was determined to make a change. She initially launched cult platform Antidote Street. In running this, she had the front row seat to the biggest challenges facing customers with textured hair and thus Carra was born.

Winnie is a recipient of the Women in Innovation UK grant, was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Beauty Disruptor award and co-chair of the British Beauty Council DEI committee. Recognised by the likes of BBC, Sunday Times Style, Vogue Business, Harper's Bazaar and Refinery29, Winnie regularly contributes to conversations about inclusive innovation and multicultural perspectives.

Keya Neal, a seasoned beauty industry professional with 30 years of experience, is renowned for her groundbreaking work in breaking the textural and racial boundaries that segregate the hair industry. As a color educator, speaker, and DEI consultant, Keya has transformed the landscape of hair education and advocacy.

As the founder of Kolour Kulture and the Texture VS Race movement, Keya focuses on teaching stylists to identify and work with all hair textures. Her REPAIRations program partners with Texture VS Race Collab Coaches to provide underserved Black stylists with equitable education, championing diversity and inclusion both behind the chair and behind the scenes in the salon industry.

Texture VS Race operates on multiple fronts, featuring education, advocacy, equity, support for the school system, and consulting with major beauty brands to help them present themselves authentically. Keya has transitioned her expertise into a multifaceted consultancy role, specializing in leadership training, DEI initiatives, campaign activations, and engaging fireside chats with internal groups.

Known for her keynotes, panel facilitations, and leadership training, Keya draws upon her extensive background as a business owner, team leader, and educator to empower people nationwide in fostering safer and more inclusive environments. She was featured in HBO Max’s four-part documentary “Not So Pretty,” where she was celebrated as the “Wise Woman” and shared the history of the broken relationship between Black individuals and America, emphasizing that “Hair is indeed a fabric, not a race.”

Keya’s passion for education and her impactful work has led her to be named North American Hair Awards’ 2024 (NAHA) Educator of The Year, a testament to her significant contributions to the beauty industry.

Emma embarked on her first ever stand-up gig while on maternity leave, that evening she won best act of the night and has been gigging non-stop since. She has garnered over 160k followers on social media from her comedy sketches. In 2022 her debut nationwide Ireland stand up tour “Mad isn’t it” was a sell out with multiple dates at Vicar Street. In the same year Emma co-wrote and starred in sketch show “No Worries if Not” on RTE.

Emma was part of the cast in Amazon Prime’s Last One Laughing Ireland hosted by Graham Norton. Emma is currently touring her brand-new show Dilemma, to audiences around the UK and Ireland. She has just released her debut book ‘Mad isn’t it’ which is a hilarious and moving story about life, friendship, (young) motherhood and taking risks.

Her other TV Credits include, The Deirdre O’Kane Show (SKY), Bridget and Eamon (RTE), Republic Of Telly (RTE), Ireland’s Fittest Family (RTE) and Celebrity Gogglebox (Virgin Media).

Workshop

Co-founder Salonology

Ryan Power is co-founder of leading salon coaching and mentorship brand Salonology and is a self confessed marketing geek and hummus aficionado.

A passionate and enthusiastic speaker, if he can't get you excited about your future then nobody can.

He's the author of the Successful Salon Marketing System and is passionate about helping those in the salon industry get - and keep - more clients, as well as helping them create a business which delivers both profitability and freedom.